Our Opinion: Restrictions won’t solve Illinois’ FOIA problems

When it comes to sunshine, elected officials have few qualms about entertaining new ideas for laws that stifle the public’s right to know what government is up to.

The latest came in the waning days of the spring legislative session when an overwhelming number of lawmakers in the Senate and the House voted to weaken the state’s Freedom of Information law by targeting so-called “voluminous” requests from members of the public.

In other words, an attempt to reduce government transparency.

Luckily for Illinoisans, Gov. Pat Quinn last week vetoed the measure, correctly noting that in addition to making it more difficult for citizens to obtain a large volume of records, “such burdens on the public penalize anyone seeking to learn more about their government,” as he wrote in his veto note.

Intended to be a remedy for smaller governmental bodies that complain about receiving too many public information requests, House Bill 3796 attempted to define a “voluminous requester” of information under FOIA. For example, more than five requests in a period of 20 business days or a request that requires compilation of more than 500 pages of material would be considered voluminous. The news media, nonprofits and academic organizations would be exempt.

It also established fees for electronic documents and would have allowed municipalities to require advance payment. Andy Shaw, president of the Chicago-based Better Government Association, was correct when he described the fees as arbitrary and unreasonably high.

“This is an annual dance that municipalities play to get out from under the legitimate need to provide citizens with information,” Shaw said. “Municipalities don’t like to take a lot of time complying with FOIA. They have been trying from Day One to get around full compliance. This is their latest iteration.”

There were a variety of problems with this law. It limited the number of documents that could be sought. It permitted government to charge substantial fees for documents, even though the people seeking the information probably are citizens who already paid for it by virtue of being taxpayers.

And it failed to address real problems with the state’s FOIA law, such as the way public officials routinely delay requests and seek extensions to respond, even when an extension is unnecessary; how public bodies blatantly ignore state attorney general opinions about making documents public; and the way citizens must file lawsuits when government refuses to provide clearly public information.

Undoubtedly, it can be tough for smaller government operations to find the time, manpower and other resources to respond to public information requests. A case out of Tinley Park apparently compelled support for the voluminous requests bill. In that case, a person frequently filed requests for “enormous amounts” of information in electronic format, said state Rep. Bob Rita, D-Blue Island, who drafted the HB 3796.

Page 2 of 2 - “I’ve seen some of the requests,” Rita said earlier this year. “It’s like give me every email between Employee A and Employee B and Employee C for the last four years.”

He said it was intended to fix “an unintended consequence of people abusing the FOIA” and was not an attempt to hide information from people.

That’s a slippery slope. Attempting to restrict freedom of information because someone is a pest or their requests keep employees from getting other work done is a troubling reason for clamping down on access to public documents.

Many of the same small governmental bodies that struggle to comply with the law also fail to put as much information as possible online — an effort that could cut down on public requests or enable workers to direct requesters to the web.

But instead of encouraging transparency or addressing some of the real flaws in the Illinois Freedom of Information Act, the legislature chose to endorse restrictions on public information. The bill — intended or not — makes it more convenient for government to hide information, stifle public curiosity and discourage participation in government.

We urge state lawmakers to let Quinn’s veto stand when the legislature reconvenes in November and consider more thoughtful measures to improve the state’s sunshine laws.